My Own Private Twillingate

If you need medical attention in Newfoundland and Labrador, you're likely to see a Come From Away. More than five hundred - about 35 per cent - of the province's physicians are immigrants. Most come from the developing world. And most of them set up shop in outport Newfoundland, where doctors are in short supply.

About half the foreign doctors stay just long enough to earn their Canadian credentials. Then they're going down the road to cities where the jobs have better pay and perks. Over time, many more of their immigrant colleagues join them.

Which makes the man you are about to meet quite remarkable. Dr. Mohamed Iqbal Ravalia has been taking care of the people of Twillingate, Newfoundland for 25 years now. Twillingate is a small, rocky island joined by a causeway to the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It's not where you'd think an East Indian Muslim from Zimbabwe would choose to build his life. But then again, being the only brown person in a Newfoundland outport is not what you might think it's like either. Dr. Ravalia is a Come From Away who is from so far away it doesn't matter.

Producer Heather Barrett brings us Dr. Ravalia's story in a documentary called My Own Private Twillingate.